His books are seldom read today, and his legend almost
a faded memory. But in the 1930s and 1940s Ernest Hemingway
was a literary idol--and role model for young writers who
imitated his sparse prose and adventurous lifestyle.

Fame came to Hemingway early; while in his twenties, he wrote The Sun Also
Rises, a novel about American expatriates in Paris after the First World War.

Decades later, in 1957, a precocious graduate student named Susan Sontag
found The Sun Also Rises put her to sleep after only 54 pages; she briefly noted
in her journal the book was "dull," but finally finished it and several Hemingway
short stories. "What rot, as Lady A would say," she later wrote. (Susan Sontag,
Reborn: Journals & Notebooks 1947-1963, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008)

But to a generation whose values had been loosened by war and its idealism
shattered by a conflict that brought no lasting peace, the jaded expatriates
and bored aristocrats in The Sun Also Rises had great appeal; they were
unconcerned with money or materialism and instead were content to while
away their days in cafes or running with the bulls at Pamplona. This was--
in Gertrude Stein's words--the "Lost Generation," and Hemingway became
their bard.

Only years later would the image of Hemingway in Paris, the struggling young
artiste, be exposed as a masterful public relations job. Married to a
Southern heiress who supported him in high bohemian style, Hemingway dressed
in bulky sweaters to appear muscular as he paraded around the
Latin Quarter. His writing style derived from Gertrude Stein and Sherwood
Anderson-- both of whom he derided in private. It was even hinted that the main
character in The Sun Also Rises, the irrepressible Lady Brett, was borrowed
from another novel. But, by the time these stories were published, years
after the fact, the Hemingway myth was solid as Dr. Eiffel's Tower. (Morley
Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, New York: Penguin Books ed., 1979)

Until his death--a suicide--in 1961, Hemingway
was seldom out of public view. His technique was
to embark on an adventure, then recapture it in
a book. The Green Hills of Africa was based on
a big game hunt the writer undertook; For Whom
the Bell Tolls fictionalized the Spanish Civil
War which Hemingway had covered as a correspondent
in the 1930s.

The Spanish war novel was a Big Book with an important theme and so was a
success with the easily guyed public and book reviewers. Hemingway had
gained no insight into the Spanish character watching the war from Chicote's
bar in Madrid where correspondents swapped drinks and stories. The novel's
characters were hollow, made-up: gypsies, shepherds, peasants in black
skirts. Moreover, the author's flat Midwest prose could not capture the
rugged beauty of the Spanish countryside, and he did not understand
the forces that roiled the Loyalist cause and would echo through Europe.
Unlike Orwell, Hemingway failed to comprehend that the struggle
pitted not only Left against Right but also the Left against itself.

Battles, boxing, bull fights: Ernest Hemingway
was there, at ringside, celebrating the cult of
manhood and danger. When the Allies swept into
Paris and liberated the city, Hemingway, who was
covering the war for Collier's, rode in with the
troops. The author carried a pistol and was
surrounded by an entourage that included a cook,
a photographer, and a public relations officer
that the Army had provided.

By the end of the war, Hemingway was world famous,
his bearded face and massive body recognized everywhere.
According to a biographer, movie stars and waiters alike
knew the author as "Papa." (A.E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway,
New York: Random House, 1966) He stayed at the Ritz and
maintained homes in several countries, including a finca
in Cuba where he wrote, bred his fighting cocks, and
held court to a stream of visitors from around the
world.

But fame took its toll. Hemingway wrote for money
and drank heavily. His lean prose became turgid. The
long narrative had never been Ernest Hemingway's forte.
Once, he said his novels had always started as short
stories. A novel, To Have and Have Not, published in 1937, simply meandered, lacking structure or plot.

In interviews, Hemingway sometimes sounded punch
drunk--using boxing or other sports analogies. On
one occasion, he said: "Mr. Rimbaud...never threw
a fast ball in his life..." referring to the 19th
century French poet; on another occasion, Ernest
told Marlene Dietrich, "You're the best that ever
came into the ring."
The novelist
was widely quoted as saying, "My writing is nothing. My boxing is
everything."

Hemingway's public persona became almost a
self-parody. After surviving a plane crash in
the African jungle, the author told the world
press: "My luck, she is running good." Another
time, he spoke of giving animals that he hunted,
"the gift of death."
A generation
of novelists, major and minor--Mailer, Jones, Shaw--worshipped Hemingway's
pseudo-toughness. But not everyone was bedazzled. One old friend, Canadian
writer Morley Callaghan, was put off by Hemingway's "dumb Indian" pose.
(This was before the dawn of Political Correctness.)

In
The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway wrote:
"Imagine if each day a man must try to kill
the moon. The moon runs away." Only the great
Hemingway could have gotten away with such a
ridiculous analogy; in fact, the slender book
brought him his Nobel.

&nbsp The Great Prize was widely considered the zenith of Hemingway's career, but
at least one critic, Stanley Edgar Hyman, recognized the decline in talent
the novel represented. Writing in The New Leader, an influential but small
circulation magazine, Hyman noted: "From the sad truthfulness of
The Sun Also Rises to the slush of The Old Man and the Sea, the
progress of Hemingway's novels is a progress in increasing dishonesty,
fake glamor, and success."

The author's pretentiousness became surreal. One evening dining at the
Colony, a watering hole for the rich, Hemingway pronounced
his table "a good querenica"--the area of the bullring where the bull repairs
to fight. This observation was worshipfully noted by George Plimpton, a
dining companion and editor of the Paris Review, a journal which had
done much to inflate Hemingway's literary stock. (The Best of
George Plimpton, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990)

Death, however, was not kind to her Prince.
After Hemingway's suicide, stories surfaced
that he had struck his wives and had beaten
poet Wallace Stevens, a much smaller man, over
some minor literary quarrel. The Hemingway
estate tried to suppress a memoir that revealed
grisly details of the writer's shotgun death.
The trial judge was unsympathetic, berating the
late writer as a "despoiler of wildlife."

Ultimately, Hemingway's reputation would be hijacked by the academics and his novels
turned into factories for new Ph.D.s. A rough and tumble writer, the late Charles Bukowski,
dismissed Hemingway as "bullshitting." In 1987, Bukowski wrote of Hemingway and other
"famous" writers of that earlier era: "I felt they were soft and fake, and worse that they...
had never felt the flame." (Charles Bukowski, Selected Letters, 1987-1994, Virgin Books,
London, 2005)

Now, it may be time for a reappraisal. For
there is much to celebrate in Ernest Hemingway,
especially those short stories he wrote before he
became famous when he was a young writer
in Paris. First published in obscure magazines
and then collected in a book entitled, In Our Time, the stories are about knockabouts,
Indian camps, fathers and sons, and innocent
love: tales by a young man, about the young,
yearning to explore the world out there--and
live a life of wonderment and adventure.

Ron Martinetti for AL. This article has generated more e-mail
than any other American Legends feature, mostly unfavorable. Tom Bertsch: "His books are seldom read today? His legend a
faded memory? This is how you lead on Hemingway? Who the f--k are you?" Tom Pierett, a Texas social studies teacher: "No, friend, you don't
forget guys like Hemingway. After folks quit reading Stephen King, Danielle
Steele and John Grisham, they will still be reading Hemingway. Count on it."
Shawn Underhill: "Hemingway was not a perfect man, true, but he still deserves
more respect than this. Whether or not it's fashionable to admit today, many
writers owe a great debt to his style, consciously or not."
Jo Jordan, British Columbia: "Personally, I was happy and relieved to read "His
books are seldom read today...." Thank God was my thought. People have finally
wised up to the fact that his writing is complete and utter drivel. With so many
wonderful, talented contemporary writers, who needs to bother with that washed
up wind bag?" Charlie: "Dear Ron, The style was simple at times and it is
perhaps this simplicity which is most deceiving as to what is being said or at
least implied. I have always thought that it is what Hemingway does not say that
is most important to his works."

Macho Man

Fred Hasson, a contributor to Suite 101 on Ernest Hemingway:
"Who is the fool that
wrote the Hemingway article? I believe Ernest Hemingway is considered among the
best short story writers--ever--the best in my opinion. His prose style influenced just
about every writer who has put pen to paper since. Please change that page. It just
makes your site look bad." Topsoul181@yahoo.com: "Whoever wrote the article knows
nothing about writing. Not only is it utter rubbish, none of it is true. It's
manipulative and ill-informed. I currently live in China, and can tell you that
almost all high school students read Hemingway, and he is typically one of the
only American authors they read." Alexander Ovsov: "It was a real pleasure to translate this into Romanian for my blog." Perry Anderson, college English instructor: "Papa had certain virtues, especially his ability to, in a minimal way, capture the essence of a place, and to convey, again minimally, the essence of conversation with all its ambiguities. However,he was also full of anti-Semitism and anti-feminism, and had a tendency to rush to judgment of those with whom he could not develop a sense of sympatico."

L. Blair Torrey, Jr., former chair, English Dept., The Hotchkiss School:
"I did teach several of his works, The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun
Also Rises...and enjoyed working with them. I guess he's cyclical, like
so many macho figures; he will last or will come back every so often.
His spare style influenced my writing, somewhat like E.B. White's
style in getting rid of superfluous words. He has some memorable
figures: I'm thinking of Pilar and her husband ("Do not provoke me!")